by Shen, L. J.
“The fuck is this shit?” I inquired through a tight, gentlemanly smile.
“T-t-that’s your work area. R-r-right outside your father’s office, so he can overlook your p-p-progress.” She said the entire sentence like it had been rehearsed a thousand times over.
I turned to stare at her, frowning. So that’s why she was scared. She thought I was going to kill the messenger. In truth, I would maybe choke her while letting her jerk me off in the communal restrooms if she was into that kind of stuff. As I’ve said, I’m not a violent man.
She cleared her throat, straightening her spine.
“Y-y-your father said if you have an issue, you should take it up with HR and t-t-then—”
Instead of waiting for her finish the sentence sometime next year, I saw myself into my father’s office, flinging the glass door open and stepping in briskly, a pleasant smile on my face. Blondie ran after me, stuttering her apologies to Da, Syllie, and Cillian. Both men sat in front of Da at his desk, hunched over a blueprint.
I waved Blondie off. “Show’s over, sweetheart. You can go back to watching The Masked Singer under your desk, thinking nobody knows what you’re doing. It’s been real.”
I wanted to slam the door in her face for effect, but it was one of those fancy, slow-moving doors, so we all stood there for eight seconds, watching it anticlimactically slithering its way shut. Behind the glass, I could see shock and horror on her face.
I turned around to my father, opening my arms with a fake smile. “Athair,” I said. Father in Gaelic. “So happy to see you. And by happy, I mean why would you continue pushing me when you’ve already taken everything?”
I didn’t care that Cillian and Syllie were there. Syllie was practically family, and Cillian was family. Regretfully, that is.
Current mood song: “Greek Tragedy” by The Wombats.
“Ceann beag, I see celibacy is eating at both your brains and manners.” Cillian arched an eyebrow a shade darker than mine.
Everything about the fucker was darker than me—soul included. I’ve always thought it ironic that Cillian and villain contain so many of the same letters.
“He never had brains to begin with, so don’t waste your time worrying about them being eaten.” My father returned to frowning at the document spread on the desk, blueprints of the new refinery everybody was talking about downstairs. He pushed his reading glasses up the bridge of his nose, his Sharpie hovering over the paper. “What’s the matter now, ceann beag?” he asked.
Ceann beag meant little one in Gaelic, which would have been endearing if it weren’t for the fact that I wasn’t the baby of the family. That was Aisling. I was the middle child. Way I saw it, I simply got the smallest chunk of my father’s heart out of us three.
“Is your roommate not to your taste?” A hint of a smirk tugged at the side of my father’s mouth as he made notes with a red Sharpie all over the blueprint.
I didn’t take the bait. He was waiting to hear how much I hated straight-laced, ball-busting Sailor. Which, granted, I did, but why give him the satisfaction?
“Sailor? She is grand. Fucking hot, too. Shame I’m celibate these days,” I tooted, draping a shoulder over one of his glass walls. I knew it was the ultimate taunt. If my father was under the impression that I was fucking Sailor while I was not fucking Sailor, and Sailor denied it vehemently—which she would—Da would have to continue honoring his deal with both of us.
Troy Brennan, Sailor’s da, supposedly gave the Grim Reaper a run for his money. That meant Sailor was going to walk away with all that was promised to her, and I with all that was promised to me. Even my father wasn’t dumb enough to poke a guy like Brennan with the insinuation that I’d screwed his baby girl.
I hadn’t had the displeasure of meeting Brennan yet, so it was easy to use his daughter as a pawn.
My father’s face fell as he tore his eyes from the blueprint, scanning me.
“If everything is grand and dandy, why are you here, in my office, uninvited?”
I pointed at my station outside his door. “A dog bed would have been more fitting.”
“Perhaps, but not in sync with the general design,” Da finished, putting his Sharpie between his teeth and clamping on it with a smile.
“Am I also to get the catering scraps after the rest of the team is done eating lunch?”
“Provided you behave like a civilized gentleman and not a Girls Gone Wild dropout.”
He was enjoying this exchange, and all the fucks I hadn’t given throughout the years were starting to mount into an impressive sum. I cared, and I was furious. Specifically, I cared about how much my family hated me. It was bad enough I had zero friends in Boston and avoided my family like the plague, now I had to spend my days sitting in a permanent naughty spot outside Da’s office.
“I want an office,” I clipped.
“Earn it,” my father challenged. “You haven’t one serious bone in your body.”
Other than my boner.
Okay, fuck. Not constructive.
“Now, now.” Syllie stood up, motioning with his hands to calm the storm brewing in the office. He was a lanky man, pale as a corpse, the dark, closely shaved stubble over his skin giving his jaw a bluish hue.
It didn’t surprise me that Cillian remained quiet. Watching Da give me the third degree was his favorite pastime, aside from sacrificing virgins and kittens to Satan, maybe.
“Let’s calm down here,” Syllie suggested. “How about I switch things around and get him a desk with the assistants? It’ll be easier for him to learn that way.”
“No,” Da boomed. “He will be where I can see him. Kill and I will teach him the ropes ourselves.”
“I understand. But Hunter is still a Fitzpatrick and needs to be crowned as one to show solidarity. With all due respect—” Syllie began amiably.
Now it was Cillian’s turn to rise to his feet, waving his fingertips dismissively, as if the old man was a common servant. I didn’t think it was possible for Cillian to breathe without looking perversely patronizing.
“Thank you,” he snapped at Syllie, who was twice his age. Bastard.
“What for?” Syllie frowned.
“Excusing yourself and giving us our privacy. Off you go.”
“But…”
“Be graceful in defeat.” Kill flashed a wolfish smirk, toothy with a promise to bite when provoked. “You are embarrassing yourself, and the boy. Leave.”
Sylvester glared at him, his mouth hanging, before he nodded and ambled over to where I was standing, by the door. He put his hand on my shoulder, shooting me a sympathetic smile.
“Welcome back, Sonny-boy,” he whispered.
I squeezed his hand on my shoulder, half-nodding. As soon as Sylvester exited, I turned to my brother. “Fuck, man, you’re a cunt.”
“And to think you spent twelve years’ private school tuition for that mouth.” Cillian rolled the blueprint on the desk neatly, his back to me. Fucker never cursed. “Is it too late to ask for your money back, Athair?”
“Unfortunately, yes, mo órga.” My golden.
“My bad for being alive. For what it’s worth, I wish I’d been pulled out before conception,” I muttered, unable to stop my mouth from running.
I was the only Fitzpatrick whose trash talk rivaled that of our ancestors, who’d arrived in Massachusetts on ships from Ireland as dusty-ass sailors with the vocabulary of gutter rappers.
Both men looked at me with open disdain. I hated it, hated that they were united and had a father-son relationship, that I was a stranger in this town, in this building, and in their home, where I wasn’t welcome.
“Speaking of pulling out…” My brother turned toward me.
I’d forgotten how tall Cillian was. He filled his Armani suit like he was born in it. His brown hair was trimmed to neat perfection, his eyes golden and flaxen, just like his nickname—mo órga.
“Is your sex tape still making the rounds on the internet?” he asked.
Af
ter I’d boarded my father’s Gulfstream from San Diego to Boston, I found out he’d appointed a team of six IT wizards to try to take that bitch down—not only from cyberland, but to steer the media clear of the story.
That only went to show that Da had no idea how the internet worked. If it was there for a second, it was there forever. There was always going to be someone to save and repost it. I didn’t wanna break the news that even he didn’t have enough juice to alter the internet, so I let him have his moment in the viral sun. But I had no illusions. That video was there to stay.
When I’d shown my face at Avebury Court Manor before fucking off to my dick-shaped building, Mom had asked me if I wasn’t worried my future wife would see it. I’d told her if she watched it, she’d see she had every reason to be thrilled about my performance.
Real talk, though? I wasn’t going to get married in a million years. Why buy a cow when you can develop lactose intolerance by drinking milk from every single tit in your vicinity? I’d seen my friends fall in love and go to extreme lengths to get the girl. It seemed like a giant drag.
“Nope.” I smirked smugly at Cillian, trying to save whatever was left of my pride. I was slowly coming to terms with the fact that my father was going to ruin the next six months for me, and I just had to see this shit through. “All clear. As far as people are concerned, I’m as golden as you are, old sport.”
It sucked that I couldn’t even remember the stupid orgy that got me into trouble. I’d love to hold on to those precious memories whenever I had to deal with Da or Kill.
“Stop saying old sport. You’re not The Great Gatsby,” my father said.
“Kill thinks everything is a pissing contest,” I growled.
“Everything is a pissing contest. Those who lose are the ones who whine about it.”
“Bet, yo.” I popped my cinnamon gum, nodding.
“Bet? Yo?” Kill looked at me like I was a horrific car accident. “Who talks like that? What do you have against the English language? You seem to butcher it whenever the opportunity presents itself. Did English hurt you when you were young? Show me where on the doll.”
“Here.” I pointed my index to my temple, my hand gun-shaped, and puffed my cheeks, pretending to shoot myself in the head.
My brother shook his head and left me with my father. It was odd to share the same space with Da without someone buffering us, a very rare occasion indeed.
Da had always seemed to have a soft spot for innocent Aisling, and he was enamored with devilishly smart and self-possessed Cillian. I was the savage creature who lacked that Fitzpatrick shine, and we both knew why, but neither of us had the balls to say it out loud.
My father removed his glasses and discarded them atop his desk, leaning back in his seat.
“Remember the document I showed you? The one in which I removed you from our will?” he asked.
“Not a sight I’ll soon forget.” I spat my gum into the trash can across the office, slam-dunking it seamlessly from my mouth. I wasn’t embarrassed to admit I wanted my family fortune, bad. My inheritance was my only chance at survival. I wasn’t good at anything, other than fucking and throwing parties. The only thing those traits qualified me to become was a Vegas showgirl. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the rack for that.
“I sent it to my attorney, signed by both your mother and me.” He tapped his chin, as if mulling his words over.
I felt the inside of my veins scorching, my hands curling into fists beside my body. “Why would you do that when I’ve agreed to your terms?” I asked, more calmly than I gave myself credit for. Hysteria didn’t get you far in the Fitzpatrick household. The more emotional you were, the better chance you had at getting your heart crushed by Da and Kill.
“Told them to hold on to it until you finish your six-month stint, just to make sure you knew how seriously your mother and I are taking this matter.”
I said nothing. I was at his mercy, and it made me furious. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to go to college and find something to fall back on. I looked out the window at the looming skyscrapers of Boston. My fingers wrapped around the wooden horse on my neck.
“Stop clutching your pearls, and don’t mess it up with the Brennan girl,” Da growled.
Dropping my hand from the Dala horse, I bit the inside of my cheek until I felt the warm saltiness of blood rolling in my mouth.
“Now get the hell out of my office and make your workspace your new home.”
“Yes, sir.”
At one point, I thought the day couldn’t get any shittier, but I shouldn’t have underestimated it. I spent the next few hours reading all the available material about Royal Pipelines and familiarizing myself with the company’s policy, history, and origins.
There was a shit-ton of stuff I didn’t know about it.
Like the fact that in 2015, GreenWorld activists had shut down sixty-eight of our stations in the US to protest our drilling in the Arctic.
Or that we were one of the first companies in the US to employ special needs persons, or that there were several schools in East Asia and Africa named after my family, because we’d funded them.
Royal Pipelines seemed to be a double-edged sword: good for some communities, disastrous for others. I wondered if Da and Kill even gave a flying fuck about shitting all over the environment. My guess was they didn’t.
After a day from hell, my demeaning, piece-of-shit brother tested me on my knowledge about the company and sent me back to my desk with six more thick-ass books to read. That’s how I found myself wobbling out of the office at seven o’clock, starving, missing my first evening class at college, and with a headache that felt like someone threw a rave in my skull, and every bitch in attendance wore high heels.
All I wanted was to get a cab, go back home, and shove my face into whatever dish the cook had made that day. I ordered an Uber and stood on the curb of the downtown street, watching the velvet blue night descending over the yellow-lit street. A brand new Maserati pulled up in front of me. The passenger door flew open.
“Get in,” a strong Southie accent ordered from inside.
I arched an eyebrow and cocked my head sideways. “Lovely proposition, and I’m very tempted, but I think I’ll pass.”
It was good to know I still held on to my good looks, even in full employment. Didn’t matter that he was obviously a dude, a compliment was a compliment, a vital sign. One hundred and eighty-one days of celibacy to go.
“Get in right now, or I’ll pay you a visit in your fancy new apartment. Fair warning: you do not want a female audience for the conversation we’re about to have.”
Troy Brennan.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
He and Da had gone over the fine print of my arrangement with Sailor, but I’d never met him. No doubt that was Da’s decision. He probably wanted to protect me from certain death because I’d have said something extra inappropriate or offensive. Or maybe it was the fact that he took more pride in his shits than he took in me and my dirty deeds.
Either way, Brennan was here now, ready to talk. So not talking wasn’t an option. I got into his car, which smelled of polished leather and the kind of wealth that was almost tangible. I could taste it on my tongue. I inhaled deeply. Nine hours in the office had made me feel like I’d worked in a mine for an entire decade.
I pressed my head against the cool, buttery leather, closing my eyes, knowing he was watching me. My Adam’s apple bobbed and I wet my lips, ignoring his blade-sharp gaze.
Troy started driving. I didn’t ask where. I doubted he’d tell me, and even if he had, it wasn’t like I had shit to say about it. Silver lining: if I died, at least I wouldn’t have to show up to work tomorrow.
“I trust we don’t need a formal introduction.” He took a turn onto a side street, cutting Haymarket and Bowdoin.
“Straight up,” I replied groggily. I was about to fall asleep in his car. He could cut me up right now and all I’d think about was how nice and warm the body bag was going to fee
l. I didn’t even care that my Uber rating was going to drop for going MIA on the driver’s ass.
“Then I also trust you know why you’re here.” Troy’s voice was villainous as hell. He sounded like Shredder from the Ninja Turtles movies.
Dude was quite the trusting motherfucker for someone who supposedly had enough skeletons in his closet to open a graveyard. I forced my eyelids apart, stifling a yawn. I tried to focus my gaze on his darkened profile.
“I’m guessing it’s along the lines of: don’t touch my daughter, don’t break her heart—or hymen—don’t give her any long-term ideas, blah blah…” I trailed off, wondering what the cook had made for dinner. I didn’t even know if said cook was a chick or a dude, old or young. Probably never would, with my current schedule.
Troy stopped the car, breaking from mid-speed, leaving skid marks on the street by the sound of it. Cars honked behind him. I heard a screech, followed by a fender bender. But all Troy did was stare at me like I was the craziest asshole he’d ever laid eyes on.
“No, you clown. I don’t think you stand a chance with my daughter. She’s not cut from the same dime a dozen hussy cloth you’re used to. Why would I assume she needs protection from you any more than you need protection from her?”
“Yeah. Why?” another voice inquired from behind me.
I jumped so high in my seat, my head hit the roof of the car. Christ on a scooter. I spun my head sharply, scowling. A shadowed man sat in the back seat. He looked tall, chiseled, Caucasian, and not unlike a mobster—a little older than me and calloused AF.
“And you are?” My brows arched.
“Sam Brennan. Troy’s adoptive son.”
“Just son,” Troy corrected unemotionally.
Aww. Even this serial-killer-ninja-asshole loved his kid more than Da loved me.
I’d heard about Sam. Rumor had it he’d been orphaned at a young age. Troy’s best friend and his former mistress were the parents. Troy and his wife, Sparrow, had legally adopted him around the time Sailor was born.
